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Opinion Contributor

An emerging 'Pragmatic Caucus'

These leaders understand the need to build a different kind of U.S. economy from the rubble of this recession. They recognize that economic restructuring requires a business-friendly climate as well as smart investments in the assets that matter — like infrastructure or clean energy or education — in the metropolitan communities that drive the economy.

This pragmatic caucus stands in sharp contrast to the “no government” tea party movement and the predictable stances of the traditional parties. Their practical ideas — for example, regional innovation clusters and infrastructure banks — represent smart ways to marry the innovation of the private sector with critical public-sector support and bolster the international competitiveness of U.S. firms and communities.

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Success of the caucus is by no means assured. The election, of course, is not over. These four candidates and others who hold similar views still need to win.

Daunting fiscal challenges are also likely to require new governors to “cut and invest” — by both balancing budgets and pursuing voter referendums that enable state investments in the next wave of economic growth.

That is tricky but doable. Ohio voters, for example, approved a $700 million bond issue this year, to extend the state’s Third Frontier venture-capital financing program.

However, state and metropolitan actions alone are not enough to rebalance America’s economy. Plans to boost exports will require Washington to get smart on trade and currency. Progress on carbon and energy will be essential to catalyzing markets in clean and green technology.

Yet U.S. history has demonstrated that the state and metropolitan innovations of today have a tendency to become federal policies of tomorrow.

During the late 1920s, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt experimented with interventions that foreshadowed the New Deal.

Throughout the 1950s, public university systems, established by states like California and North Carolina, set the stage for the federal technology investments of the 1960s and 1970s.

And during the 1980s, a bipartisan network of governors experimented with welfare and health care reforms, paving the way for federal advances in the next decade.

The next few years could see the similar effects of bottom-up innovation. If Washington’s polarization can be mitigated, and ultimately replaced, with the pragmatism of state capitols, city halls and their business and nonprofit allies, the United States may emerge from this recession stronger than ever.

The payoff will be greater economic vitality and sustainability — and more and better jobs.

Bruce Katz is a vice president at the Brookings Institution and founding director of its Metropolitan Policy Program.